I was watching Live PD last night and there was mother that let her 13 year old daughter practice driving around the parking lot, and the cops kind of suggested that this wasn’t the best idea because she might have an accident.
Suppose she really did have an accident and the mother had valid insurance. What would be the insurance result in the following scenarios:
Kid strikes a fixed object.
Kid strikes another motorist who had valid insurance
Kid strikes another motorist who was uninsured.
Would it matter if the mother actually gave permission for the kid to use the car vs the kid taking it on a joyride without permission?
Conceptually, all three scenarios are basically the same–either there will be coverage or there will not be. Striking an uninsured driver/vehicle is an interesting exercise because in some jurisdictions (states) what the uninsured person is eligible to receive from the liable party can be significantly limited.
As to whether or not there is coverage, that will vary from company to company. Read your policy book and check out how it defines YOU and DRIVER. Check under the Exclusions heading and see what sorts of situations are flat out excluded from coverage. Check the Insuring Agreement for similar restrictive language.
But wait, there’s more! Grey ares can be handled by company procedures cooked up by the company’s legal department. Some companies are nicer than others when deciding to favor the customer vs. adhering more to the ‘spirit’ of the policy. Further, all of the above will be subject to case law which varies wildly from state to state.
I can tell you I’ve paid exactly the claim situation in the OP: underage, unlicensed, intoxicated driver took parents’ keys without permission, and wrecked the car.
A comment on the observation that the cops always smell weed: I’ve also noticed that- it seems every single driver pulled over seems to have one or more of the following: intoxicated, drugs, guns, bad license, no registration, no insurance, or an interesting / rude character. Live PD actually has a substantial tape delay. People have figured it out by clues like times displayed on phones or when a clock is shown on screen. The delay starts at a half hour and then decreases a bit as the show goes on. The purported purpose is to make sure something of the nature of an officer involved shooting doesn’t make it on-air, but I suspect it’s also to not show all the (boring) traffic stops where the motorist is polite and they give a warning for a bad brake light or write a speeding ticket and nothing else is an issue.
But I’ve been on a few ride-alongs with police, and there is some accuracy to this – those drivers do tend to get pulled over more often. Because police seem to recognize indications that I never noticed at all. Their experience on the streets is fairly accurate at picking out drivers who have multiple things wrong.
I live in Canada and insurance rules may be slightly different, but…
My insurance puts the onus on me to determine that anyone I lend the car to does indeed have a valid driver’s license. If they show me a valid license and I have no way to know they’ve been suspended, not my fault. If I let someone obviously not licensed to drive my car, my insurance company has no responsibility for the outcome. (Similarly for me driving if DUI) I get to pay the full amount of any damage, or go bankrupt trying.
If the other driver has insurance, they have (in my province) an “uninsured driver” clause. This means if an uninsured driver (or, uninsured moose) hits them, they can collect from their insurance up to the limit of insurance liability - and their insurance company will then make the effort to recover from the responsible parties - the uninsured driver who caused the accident, and the idiot who let them drive if applicable, and possibly the registered owner of the other car, etc.
If the other driver does not have insurance, then he gets to try to arrange whatever lawsuits are necessary to collect from the offending driver and/or car owner without the help of any insurance company.
If the child hits a stationary object - then the owners of said object get to chase for payment. My relatives had an office that was hit by a 15-year-old joyriding (without authorization) in mama’s van. The building insurance paid for the repairs then went after the vehicle owner’s insurance. Because the driving was unauthorized, I gather the insurance would pay (but be reflected in the owner’s new premium?).